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Seeing Yiayia at the hospital, so small and frail, shook me. She would never come home to me, we no longer shared a home, and this separation marked the beginning of a painfully long goodbye.
My tiny house ballooned around me in an anti-Alice in Wonderland phenomenon.
I closed my bedroom door against the threat and turned the lock. Crossing to the window, I yanked open the curtains as wide as they could go. Then, sitting back against my headboard, with Vander’s pillow in my arms, lost in my thoughts, I dozed off and on while the afternoon sky darkened to night.
Hunger pains rumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten since that morning.
I slipped out of my room, turning on every light in the house as I made my way to the kitchen. My cell phone buzzed on the counter where I’d dropped it when I got home.
So many missed calls. I called Vander back immediately, apologizing, telling him I’d fallen asleep.
“You’re okay, koukla mou? Do you want me to head over there with the boys?” He spoke quickly, his voice laced with worry.
I looked at the time. Eight-thirty. The time they should be settling down to go to bed. They still had school tomorrow and they needed their sleep.
“I’m okay, moro mou.”
“You’re sure?” He didn’t sound convinced.
“As okay as I can be at this time.”
“Ruby. Should I come?” Vander’s voice deepened and he spoke almost harshly.
“No,” I insisted firmly. “I don’t want the boys disrupted.”
“They’re not in bed yet. They just got their jammies on.”
“It’s okay. They’ll still be alarmed if you pull them out of the house right now.”
“I’ll be there first thing in the morning, Ruby-mine. I’ll drop the boys off at school and head straight over.”
“Okay, honey. I love you, Vander.”
“I love you, too, Ruby-mine. It’s going to be okay, koukla. I promise you’ll be okay.”
I warmed up some leftovers and ate while I called Amber and Minty back. Their voices held back the silence from encroaching too closely.
After I hung up, I put my dishes in the dishwasher and tidied up the house, ghosts of memories following me from room to room.
My dad standing behind Yiayia in the kitchen while she cooked, reaching around her to steal food, and laughing when she pretended to scold him.
Pappou sitting at the small kitchen table, his reading glasses perched on his nose, poring over bank statements and order forms for Spuds, while Yiayia stood at the stove making him Greek coffee.
Amber and I standing on stools at the counter, learning to cook with Yiayia.
In the family room, my mother, when my dad was still with us, curled up in the corner of the couch reading a romance novel, Yiayia beside her, studying cookbooks and occasionally asking for an explanation.
Then, after my mother left, Amber and I at the dining room table with a younger Yiayia and Pappou, doing our homework, eating dinner, hearing the gossip from the Greek community.
In the hallway, Yiayia welcoming guests who came to celebrate Pappou’s name day, heading out the door with Amber on the weekends to help at Spuds, getting ready for church, Yiayia threatening to boil us if we didn’t hurry up.
Yiayia putting homemade lunches in schoolbags by the door, a limo out front ready to carry the three of us who were left to the church, Yiayia so enormously proud to walk Amber down the aisle.
Yiayia putting the new sheets on the crib in Jace’s nursery.
Yiayia chasing Alex and Jace when they were toddlers, coaxing them to eat, do their homework, be careful, forever telling them to be careful.
Countless family dinners took place in that dining room, and a parade of apparition-like Ambers and Rubys passed from the kitchen to the dining room, carrying thousands upon thousands of platters overflowing with food made with Yiayia’s love.
